Glimpses of the Sanskrit Buddhist Literature (Volume 1)

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An exhaustive history of the Sanskrit Buddhist Literature is a longfelt desideratum, Writers of the history of Indian/Sanskrit literature Keith, Macdonell, Winternitz, Nariman, Krishnamachariar, Warder, Gonda etc. have touched only a few Buddhist titles or authors just by the way while dealing with a particular genre of the literature. Very few are the titles on the Buddhist writers/poets. expert the previous works of A.C. Banerji and D.S. Ruggg on Sarvästivada & Madhyamaka schools, Siglinde Dietz's work on the Buddhist lekha literature (in German) is the pioneering independent study in this field in a full book form. Scholars did add introductions dealing with relevant points relating to the text and the author while editing or compiling a text. Of course several scholars from India and abroad contributed papers on various aspects of a title or an author but the complete study is still awaited.

Reasons behind this scarcity have been many. Firstly, banishment of Buddhism from the major parts of India from 14th C.A.D. to 20th and the unavailability of the original Sanskrit Buddhist works. Their extant Tibetan translations too could not be used by every interested scholar easily. But, the Central Asian expeditions, the German-Nepal Manuscript Preservation projects. Gilgit MSS. and the new catalogues of MSS. preserved in several libraries of the world began to bring new titles to light on one hand, and on the other, entrance of Tibetan scholars and monks throughout the whole world after the historic event in 1959 in Tibet became a boon in disguise for the scholars for learning Tibetan language & literature. Thus the appearance of the new rather unknown, titles in their original Sanskrit and/or their Tibetan translations as well opened a new vista for not only Sanskrit Buddhist literary texts but for Buddhistic studies in general. Gradually there increased more and more interest among scholars in India and abroad in the Mahāyāna studies.

**Contents and Sample Pages**